


The Trapped Man

by Little_Mothrid



Series: Short Story Collection [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Dystopia, Fantasy, Original Character(s), Short Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:47:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25503889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Little_Mothrid/pseuds/Little_Mothrid
Summary: In a floating Utopia, not everything is as perfect as everyone believes. This is one man's journey of escape.
Series: Short Story Collection [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1847590
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	The Trapped Man

**Author's Note:**

> This is a short story I wrote years ago after being inspired by a piece of artwork I have long forgotten. It holds a dear spot in my heart, so I decided to publish and possibly rewrite or expand this universe if there is enough interest.

It all started one morning as I was walking down the stairs of our great city on my way to work at the kilns. Everyone had an assigned job in Sterling based on their skills, but more importantly, their status. I was born to a middle class family, and I was good with my hands, so they assigned me to be a potter on the lowest levels. As usual, I was lost in my own thoughts that morning. I tripped over a stray stone and began my long tumble down the seemingly endless brick stairs. Farther and farther I fell for what seemed to be hours. When I landed, I hit my head and lost consciousness.

I awoke to an odd, raspy mumbling and an unbelievably foul odor. Looking around, I gathered that I fell into the crescent city’s lowest level; the wastes. A short distance away from me was an old man with eyes as clouded and yellow as a rotted egg and a coat that seemed to be woven from moths. His hair hung in greasy vines and his beard was more of an animal than a fashionable adornment. As his lips of dried caterpillars moved, I realised that the raspy noise came from him and that he was speaking to me.

“Not many people we get down here. Especially ones that don’t smell like the ass end of a mule. Give me your name if you have one. Don’t you hear me? Are you mute or just plain stupid?”, he said with his eyes looking through me.

“My name is Abner Horrikson and I’m a potter in the kilns. I was lost in my thoughts and fell down on my way to work”

“Stupid and clumsy. It’s a wonder you haven’t been offed yet.”

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing”

“ I must be going now. I’m late enough as it is and really don’t want to get into more trouble than I’m already in. Have a good life, Hermit”

“Raymond”

“What?”

“My name. I’ll see you again, Abner”

At that he, Raymond, laid down and fell asleep. I got up off of the compost, brushed rotted materials from my long pants, and proceded back up the stairs dreading the verbal backlash I was about to receive.

  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------  
  
  


I shook my head as I walked down the stairs. It had been a few days since my encounter with the hermit and I couldn’t get him out of my mind. As I stood in the door of the kiln chamber, I looked down the great spiral staircase into the dark depths of Sterling. Looking back at the kiln, belching its blazing inferno, I had made my decision. I then descended into what I didn’t know to be the portal into my new life. Enveloped by the darkness and odors of what even my imagination did not even comprehend, my foot caught on what I presumed to be the rotting carcass of the aristocrats’ latest feast and fell face first into cold slime.

“Oi! Watch where you put your feet, dumbass!” 

I rolled off of Raymond then wiped the slime and debris from my face. 

“I’m sorry. It’s so dark, I didn’t see you”

“Oh really? I can see you perfectly” he said waving his hand in front of his blind eyes. “Anyhow, we have much to talk about. Unlike those sheep up above, you actually have a mind of your own.”

“Why do you say this?”

“You are the only person I have met who gets lost in their own thoughts. They prize their “Utopia” and “Conformity” so they only think with a hive mindset, but not you. I have this dream, you see. One where I live outside of this floating prison and can speak my mind and live how I please without the fear of being thrown from the peak. I have a fear of falling you see. Not a pleasant feeling in your gut now is it.”

“ I should say not”

“I plan on using you for my dream. Will you help me escape? Will you think for yourself and be your own man or continue being the aristocrats’ little lamb.”

I pondered this and rolled it over in my head for what felt like hours before I came to my decision.

“I’ll help you. When do we leave?”

“Now”

With that, he grabbed my hand, his ragged talons digging into my flesh, and started running up the way I had come. If we got to the gliders on the central level, we would be free. Guards began chasing us as soon as we emerged into the lighted upper levels where neither of us were permitted. We continued to run as our pursuers gained on us. On and on we ran up the staircase. I heard a scream like that of a bear sound behind me and the talons left my hand. Raymond had tripped over a pot that I recognized to be one of my own creations and was plummeting out of the window down onto the plains below. I kept going until I reached the gliders. I had made it. I mounted and secured myself to a glider and jumped off of the ledge. I descended and for the first time in my life, I felt free. I landed next to the broken body of my unlikely friend. He was still alive but not for long as he was gurgling for air. His rib had punctured his lung.

“Go on and make the dream a reality.” 

In that moment, he passed on to a better world. I vowed to myself to do just as he asked with his final breath. Now I live in a glen with you, my darling Lucinda. I lay down and fall asleep next to the cute, deformed little girl fate had delivered me the day I found my paradise, my freedom, my new world.


End file.
